Recently, I was invited to visit the town of Loverna, SK, a stone’s throw from the Alberta border, with a documentary film company out of Saskatoon.
This experience — wandering through a virtually empty town, scaring the pigeon who had made his home in the curling rink foyer, visiting the still-used Anglican church, peeking in the windows of the old Elk’s Hall and garage — was a fun way to spend a day, if a little sad (even for a historian).
There were surprises: the artifact I had originally dismissed as yet another old wagon proved, on further examination, to be a horse-drawn manure spreader — surely organic groups would hearken to the knowledge of prairie pioneers, pre-commercial fertilizer! The box of empty stubbie beer bottles at the back of the hall were another great find.
Saskatchewan is littered with the remnants of towns, villages, and abandoned farm yards, the detritus of humanity moving through the landscape and sojourning for a short but intense period of time. Other towns, of course, remain vibrant, even growing. New house starts in Biggar, an hour west of Saskatoon (where I live), have been phenomenal over the past six years. The so-called ‘Saskaboom’ is spilling back to the rural regions, at least those within striking distance of the major centers, or near the extractive industrial centers of potash, oil, or gas development. Ironically, although the region around Loverna is crawling with oil and gas workers — we saw no less than two helicopters in the area, in addition to extensive oil pump operations — workers are not moving back to the rural towns. Or at least, not Loverna.
My experiences with the video crew that day got me thinking about ghost towns, and how it has become an urban craze to drive out of the cities to poke through and photograph the remants of the rural past. I recently wrote a blog post for ActiveHistory.ca on the craze. Read it here: http://activehistory.ca/2012/01/sad-empty-places-marketing-ghost-towns-in-saskatchewan/
Happy Ghost Town hunting.
hi merle,
the thing is, what seems like a ‘new’ craze is simply a rediscovery of an old one. this was all the rage in the twenty years after ww2: hop in your car and go for a spin to see ghost towns, abandoned mines, historical sites, and an array of other ‘old timey’ spaces and places. there was an entire sector of the publishing industry dedicated to this activity: the publishers of booklets, brochures, pamphlets and travelogues about backroads and byways, the colourful cypress hills, the historic crowsnest pass, etc. right now on my bookshelf i have a copy of winifred kincaide’s “saskatchewan monuments,” which appears to be from the late 1950s. its totally given over to describing historical people, places, and events that can be tied in with the cairns, monuments, plaques, ‘restored’ forts, and other such places that can be seen along saskatchewan’s arterial highways. check it out to see if you can find a copy…
also, i think there was an issue of prairie forum given over to the history of historical sites in the prairie provinces. a fellow named don kerr has an article about saskatchewan’s historical sites.
ben
Hi Ben!
You’re right — the ‘Saskatchewan Monuments’ were a direct result of the provincial Golden Jubilee, which put a lot of money into roadside cairns, etc. What I see now is not so much cairns, but the physical remains themselves (if there are any to be found); and the ‘remembrance’ comes out as a collective participation in both the ‘ghost town hunting’ and the sharing of photographs online! Perhaps a nod to the ‘ordinary-ness’ of small towns and farms, not their ‘distinctiveness’, too (not a battle site or old fort, etc.). Thanks for your comments.